Lamentation by Joe Clifford

This is the third book by Clifford that I've read, following a short story collection and a very short novel.  Clifford is one of the better neo-noir writers that I've come across and this first entry in a new series about protagonist Jay Porter is a good entry in the new trend of literary noir.  Porter is, if not a loser, then definitely a slacker.  His parents died when he was 10 and he was raised by his Aunt and Uncle, but was continuously drawn back to his home town by the town and by his older brother Chris.  Chris has become, over the years, a junkie's junky.  His frequent run-ins with the law have cost Jay his girlfriend, who moved out with their young son.  And Jay's attempts to help his brother have led him to forsake the opportunity to go to college and find him working for an estate agent and living in a tiny apartment above a service station.  

Now Chris is being sought in connection with the murder of another junky with whom Chris had been working recycling electronics and with whom Chris had been heard arguing.  And Jay has to try to find him before something bad happens.  Because Chris' rambling conspiracy-laden talk with Jay indicated that there was something on one of the hard-drives that was supposed to be recycled would rock the small community in which they lived. 

While not without its flaws Clifford again gives us a good new entry into the new wave of neo-noir.  And I look forward to seeing where Jay Porter goes from here. 

A couple of weeks ago, my wife saved a piece on the CBS Sunday Morning news shows about a book she thought I would be interested in...All of the Marvels by Douglas Wolk. It was a puff piece, a journalist who set out to read all of the Marvel Comics with the conceit that they told one big single story-kind of the fanboys dream so I thought, but listening to him speak about the journey he took, a bonding experience with his young son, gave me an inkling that this might be something a little different. I checked the online catalog of my local library, and found they had a copy available, placed a request, and the next day picked it up when I was notified it was waiting for me.

I wasn't sure I was going to read it, but I wanted to see if my inkling was correct. It was and it wasn't. I ended up reading the book over the course of a couple of days. There are parts that are really engaging and interesting. There are parts I rolled my eyes at. But on balance, it's worth the read.

The first three introductory chapters were refreshingly original in their voice and their approach to reading Marvel Comics. It outlines Wolk's goals, approaches, reasons and scope of his journey-all the Marvels featuring the Marvel Heroes (not the westerns or the romances per se but yet some of them play a part too, but not licensed stuff-so no Conan, G.I. Joe etc. and not stuff like Spidey Super Stories that weren't part of the overall story being told) between '61 (around but not quite starting with FF#1) and 2015 (the end of Hickman's Secret Wars series), but ranging before and after that in select threads. But he wasn't going to try to read them in order, or going to worry about the minutiae of continuity (-it all happened but none of the details matter, there's stuff that's the core of the stories weave and then there's stuff that's just topical references that don't matter and hinder rather than enhance the story, the goal is to get to that core matter and not to sweat the topical stuff).

I'd almost go so far as to say those first three chapters are must reading for anyone who is thinking of diving into the Marvel Universe or who has already done so. As a primer for those looking to explore, and as a swift kick in the ass to those who have and have gotten too wrapped in having to read everything in order afraid they might miss something if they don't and cleaving to continuity as their sacred cow and expecting Marvel Comics to conform to their own personal OCD demons and peccadillos. It's an approach that prizes exploration and discovery, fun and enjoyment, and one that values current comics on the same level as past comics as all being part of the same story and not positioning current comics as the red-headed stepchild that has destroyed the story of Marvel and fanboy's childhoods.

The following chapters range in quality from quite good to self-indulgent nonsense. They alternate between longer chapters that do deep dives into a title or theme that and looks at its place in the overall big honking Marvel story and shorter interludes that examine a smaller topic or side note. The first deep dive focuses on the Fantastic Four, followed by an interlude looking at Monsters in the Marvel story. Other deep dive chapters look at Spider-Man, Master of Kung Fu, Mutants, Thor and Loki, Black Panther, Dark Reign, apocalyptic themes-i.e. stories about the end of the universe in story, and a final chapter examining heroism in the modern context of Kamela Kahn and Squirrel Girl. Interludes include an examination of the role and relationships between Lee, Kirby and Ditko at the heart of it all, the influence of the Vietnam War and the Vietnam years in America on the story being told in Marvel Comics, "Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe" about the portrayal of media and entertainment in the Marvel story through the years, an examination of the role of topical references in the MU exemplified by how the American presidents have been portrayed through the Marvel story, a deep dive on the comics of March 1965 and how they are the chrysalis of the single story idea, and a final interlude on Linda Carter, Student/Night Nurse and how she ma just be the protagonist of the entire story (mostly tongue in cheek but with some decent insights in the relationship between Marvel and female readership). There is a final chapter that is mostly about Wolk's experience bonding with his son through the reading journey (some not all of the reading of all the Marvel Comics was done with his son). Then there are some acknowledgements of those whose work influenced him or those who helped him on his journey (there's a few good suggestions for blogs and podcasts among this), and finally an appendix where he breaks down the Marvel story as a whole into the phases he sees Phase 1 is 1961-1968, Phase 2 1968-1980, Phase 3 1980-1990, Phase 4 1990-2004, Phase V 2004-2015, and Phase VI still developing form 2015-when the book was written circa 2020, published 2021; and what he sees as the defining characteristics of each phase.

His analysis in chapters 4 on ranges from very insightful to at time insipid, but he is at least an engaging writer even in the books lowest points. He has some fanboy tics, but for the most part he has identified and accounted for those biases as he writes and calls himself on them when they appear. But on the whole his approach feels fresh even when travelling through some tired territory and he has some very different takes than a lot of curmudgeons who would make up his age peer group (he was born in 1970 so just a year younger than I), and is very much anti-gatekeeping in comics. And while the MCU does enter into the conversation at times, it is rare, which makes this a very refreshing discussion of Marvel that focuses on comics and doesn't have the default setting that everything good about Marvel as comics occurred before 1990. I don't always agree with Wolk's assertions of tastes, but his approach is refreshing and his arguments are at least cogent and well-presented most of the time.

-M

The Misconceiver
Lucy Ferriss, 1997

This is a near-future (now much nearer than when it was written) dystopian tale, which depicts society in America in 2026, fifteen years after Roe v Wade was overturned (well, Ferriss was only 11 years off). Based on a series of laws enacted in the aftermath of that decision, women are effectively second-class citizens who are, e.g., prohibited from having jobs if they’re married, contraception is illegal and homosexuality has also been functionally outlawed. The central character, a woman in her mid-20s named Phoebe Chambers, is a software technician who works for a company in upstate New York that tracks down computer viruses and debugs systems infected by them. However, she also has a secret vocation: she’s a ‘misconceiver’, which is what illegal abortionists are called, and demand for the services she and many others provide is high. She ends up getting caught, though, and sent to prison. Another inmate helps her escape, and she spends some time as a fugitive, albeit barely surviving the experience. During this period, she also confronts many of her own insecurities, inner demons and life choices, and wonders about the morality of some of the latter.
There are many thought-provoking aspects to this story, esp. now that it looks like Roe v Wade will indeed be overturned, but there’s also many parts where I thought it dragged a bit (the parts in the latter half in which Phoebe is doing her soul-searching). Be warned, though: it’s not for the squeamish, as there are several pretty detailed descriptions of abortions being performed (including in the first few pages) as well as the consequences of a botched procedure.

The Black Company by Glen Cook



This is a reread for me, but it's been about 25 years since I last read it. I read the first book in the Black Company series sometime in the mid 90s, and quite liked it but for some reason never got around to reading the rest. A few years back my wife had picked up an omnibus edition of the first three books for herself, and I figured I would finally get around to the rest of the series, but it's taken me a few more years to finally crack open that omnibus. I still have the rest of it to try to get to, but I've reread that first one again.

I really like Cook's worldbuilding and characters. He has a great ensemble cast, but does tell the story from a single POV rather than having multiple POV characters as is the modern trend. They are interesting protagonists, but none of them are heroes, something that is now not uncommon in a lot of modern fantasy, but was pretty rare when these first came out. IF you are not familiar with the premise of the series, it follows the exploits of a mercenary band known as the Black Company. They soldier for pay, and are neither heroes nor villains, but have a sense of honor about fulfilling the contract and meeting their obligations. The POV character is Croaker, the medic of the company and the keeper of their chronicles (The Annals). As the story opens, they are in the service of The Lady, who is pretty much the Dark Queen trope. She is essentially evil personified, except it turns out she is fighting an even greater evil, he ex-husband who seeks to return form a kind of limbo/netherworld, but is doing so slyly through manipulation and schemes rather than brute force. In the service to the Lady, are the Taken, sort of immortal sorcerers with lots of character flaws who chose service to the lady to escape the bonds of death. Some just lurk in the background others are well-developed, and they all spice up the story a bit regardless of how well developed they are. Of course the Company is embroiled in all this, but the strength is not just the plots and schemes or the characters. but how well Cook captures the mundane parts of life as a soldier and juxtaposes the essential contradiction of life as a soldier between the tedium of the mundane with the danger and rush of combat, and Cook is equally adept at writing both.

-M

The Weirdstone of Brrisingamen
by Alan Garner




This is definitely one of those books where the cover is the big draw... and it's an actual scene in the book! (Love it when that happens).

I suspect I would have been pretty bored with this book at another time, but I haven't read any straight fantasy for a bit, so it was ok. Two parts Narnia, One part Middle Earth, and One part Norse Mythology.. a fair amount of the book is the two main characters, Susan and Colin trapesing about the English countryside (sometimes with their otherworldly protectors, sometimes not) on a quest to protect a gem from the bad guys, who what to use it to start Ragnarok... though in some points of the book Ragnarok sounds more like the place where evil things live.. it's a bit odd.

Overall, a fun little adventure book if you're in the mood for a quest.

Stolen Faces
Michael Bishop, 1977

This one is set at some indeterminant point in humanity’s future, when we have many space colonies and a star-faring galactic navy. Lucian Yeardance, an officer in the latter, gets in trouble for insubordination and as punishment he is appointed the administrator, or ‘kommissar’, of a quarantine zone on a plant called Tezcatl. The people in this zone are all apparently afflicted with a bacterial disease called muphormosy, which has similar effects to Hansen’s disease, better known as leprosy, and indeed, the people who suffer from it are called lepers by everyone else on the planet and similarly shunned. They seem to have also developed a very debased social structure and culture that even further disgusts outsiders. Yeardance has a minimal staff and receives just barely enough supplies for the zone’s inmates, and he realizes that he's just supposed to suck it up and maintain the status quo. He is troubled by many things he sees and learns (including something about the nature of the disease that shakes him to his core), and initially tries to institute some changes. However, he's frustrated by the colonial government and bureaucracy that are mostly indifferent to his pleas for more food and medicine, and the intransigence of the colony’s populace, including members of his own staff, and eventually decides to take some drastic steps that ultimately - don’t do much good.
This is an interesting and thought-provoking book, which explores some deeply uncomfortable themes – mainly the way people confront disease and deformity in others, as well as rituals and customs that often seem counterproductive. However, I also found it quite flawed at places (mainly in explaining why certain things are the way they are vis-à-vis the treatment of the ‘muphormers’, but I can’t really go more deeply into it without spoiling a major plot point). And the fact that society on the planet is deeply influenced by Aztec/Mesoamerican culture (i.e., its name, the names of its settlements, the architecture and culture and the arts all have a sort of Aztec veneer – because the colony’s founder was obsessed with the Aztecs) honestly seemed a bit forced to me.